Subscribe to this blog

Never miss a post... SUBSCRIBE TO EMAIL

Search This Blog

Posts

What is Modern Agriculture?
Modern agriculture could be a scientist in a lab creating the newest impossible non-meat hamburger. Modern agriculture could mean the development of GMO seeds to decrease pesticide use. Modern agriculture could be turning on your irrigation system from an app on your computer. Modern agriculture could just mean the use of GPS in tractors, or maybe just the use of a tractor on a farm. Modern agriculture could mean something different to you depending on how you look at agriculture.

Modern agriculture is essentially developing practices that help farmers increase efficiency and reduce the amount of resources to meet the world's needs. But depending on your interpretation of the term you could already have created your opinion of modern agriculture. 2% of the population is involved in agriculture but 100% of the population has opinions.That's the situation we face today, consumers tend to develop their own opinions of modern agriculture without unders…

A few month ago now, I attended the American Farm Bureau Young Farmers and Ranchers Conference. Among the attendees were your usual Mid Western corn and soybean farmers, Texan cattle ranchers, cotton growers from the South and Miss America. Yes, you read that right, Miss America came to the Young Farmers and Ranchers (YF&R) conference. Miss America and YF&R don't usually go together. You don't generally think Miss America would have anything to do with farmers. But this year, Miss America, Betty Cantrell is a girl quite familiar with agriculture. She grew up raising livestock through her local 4-H and grew up immersed in Georgia agriculture.

As a country girl she sees the importance of agriculture education and awareness. And that's why she has decided to partner with American Farm Bureau Foundation for Agriculture in the First Peas to the Table contest. The contest challenges Kindergarten to 5th grade classes to grow peas and learn about school gardens, history o…

For the past few weeks the state of California has been receiving some
much needed rain. The quantity of rain is quite variable throughout the
state. As usual the North State is receiving much more than the southern valley. While some parts of the state are receiving 3-5 inches over a few
days, the other end of the valley is still only receiving 1/10 to a 1/4
of an inch at a time. We need the rain and especially the snow in the
mountains so we can't be picky and we take what we can get.

This rings true for timing as well. Almond growers are very happy
we didn't get any down pours of rain during the February bloom time
frame. That could cause serious problems for the almond crops and potentially wipe out an entire crop. We had a few weeks in the beginning of the month that were quite wet and just a little clouds and sprinkles expected for the balance of the month. But just what does a March RAIN mean for an almond farmer?

Tree and orchard removal seem to have been on the rise over the last couple years. With the lack of water, farmers are having to remove orchards that they can't irrigate. Farmers are down sizing their planted acreage and prioritizing what water they do have. Many farmers are removing older, less productive orchards sooner than they would normally. In it's place, sometimes the land is being fallowed and times they plant a new orchard which requires less water. All of this means more and more trees are being torn out and orchards are being removed. But what do farmers do with these trees once they are removed from the ground?

Until recently, a common use was co-generation. Farmers would pay for their trees to be removed and hauled to co-generation plants. These facilities would burn removed trees and make energy to be transferred into the grid. In the 1980's biomass plants and the utility companies created 20-30 year contracts for these facilities to be built and to use agri…

I am Almond Girl Jenny and thanks for stopping by my blog. I am a 4th generation California farmer. I grew up in Chico Ca, where my father farms almonds and walnuts. I married a 4th generation California farmer from Wasco. Together we farm almonds with his family. Follow along our adventure!